


Beneath the Surface

by aliaoftwoworlds



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU, M/M, RhFe November 19 Mini Bang, and mermen, full of fluff and bad marine science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 22:57:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21310006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliaoftwoworlds/pseuds/aliaoftwoworlds
Summary: Written for the RhFe November 19 Mini BangTony is a marine researcher who can’t figure out why weird things keep happening around his equipment. Rhodey is a merman who’s been watching Tony and leaving little gifts for him.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark
Comments: 22
Kudos: 314
Collections: RhodeyTony Mini Bang 2019





	Beneath the Surface

**Author's Note:**

> So this is an extreme departure from my usual stuff. I almost never write true AUs—I’ll move characters to a different world or change some details or something, but they’re almost always the same people with the same jobs and backgrounds—but this idea wouldn’t get the hell out of my head and I signed up for the Rhodey/Tony Mini Bang, so why not. 
> 
> As a little side note, I may have majored in biology before med school but I don’t actually know much about marine bio, and I didn’t do hours of research or anything for this, so please forgive me if any of you know more than me and spot some inaccuracies (you know, other than the magical mermaid stuff). 
> 
> My partner for this, the creator of the amazing piece below (I've never embedded an image before, so if it didn't work, here's the link to it: https://twitter.com/YackyArts/status/1191382405266968577?s=19 ) can be found on twitter @yackyarts, check them out!

Tony sighed for about the twentieth time that day, watching the little group of starfish stubbornly refuse to move across the tank. He just didn’t understand what he was doing wrong. The composition of the water was exactly the same, the temperature was the same as the water he’d had his equipment in, he even changed the solar output of the bulbs above the tanks—nothing.

This species of starfish was a rarity this far north anyway, and to find three of them… he didn’t understand it. If his equipment was attracting them somehow, it should be doing it now, yet they’d been in the fifty foot tank for three days now and shown no purposeful movement toward the same piece of tech.

This was at least the sixth bit of _weirdness_ he’d noticed around his experiments in the last four months. The project itself was going well. His tech was functioning even beyond the capacity he’d originally estimated. If he could just further reduce the size and swap out a few materials for something cheaper yet just as sustainable, it would be feasible to produce on a mass scale. Of course, he’d need another few years at least to prove that it wasn’t harmful to marine life or having any unexpected side effects, and then to go through further testing and retesting and approvals, but he could honestly change the world with this.

Of course, the strange appearance of unexpected marine life and debris—for lack of a better word—around his equipment was pointing toward some kind of potential side effects, but Tony had no clue what. Everything living that he’d pulled from the test areas was perfectly healthy, as far as he could tell. The shells and sea glass and pieces of dead coral and all of the other nonliving things weren’t contaminated with anything, and Tony had no earthly idea how they kept ending up near his sites.

He’d have to ask Bruce more about it when he got back from that conference. Bruce was a godsend when it came to the squishier side of marine sciences, helping with a lot of the biologic aspects while Tony focused on the tech and engineering sides of it all. Tony didn’t know much at all about animal behavior, and his inability to replicate whatever was drawing all these things to his equipment was frustrating.

For now, he supposed, he’d just go home. Maybe some good sleep would clear his head and he’d be able to figure out what the hell was going on.

It wasn’t until two weeks later that the idea really came to Tony. 

He’d worked through the night at the lab. Not intentionally, but he was having a breakthrough. A caffeine-fueled session of insanity, Nat would call it, but she was one to talk, always going out on her crazy, life-threatening diving missions with sharks and lionfish and electric eels and shit like that. Thrill-seeker.

He did fall asleep at his desk sometime around three in the morning, but woke up just before sunrise, when the automatic light timer in the tank room next door flipped on and light flooded even into the small workspace where he was slumped over and sleeping on top of a stack of notebooks.

He decided to go out early and check on one of his newer installations out in their protected waters. By the time he changed into his gear, the sun was just rising above the horizon, streaking the sky with brilliant pinks and oranges. The water was calm this morning, reflecting the sunrise, and Tony took a moment to just stand there, taking it all in. Moments like this were a simple yet powerful reminder of why he fought so hard to help preserve the beauty of the natural world.

Just as he was moving forward to the ladder down into the water, there was a splash not far away. It had the distinct characteristic of something large that was moving gracefully enough into the water not to make too much noise. Tony froze, squinting into the sunlight, trying to see across the rocky outcropping to where the noise had come from. Sea lions weren’t uncommon to see in the area, and while they were usually peaceful and easy enough to avoid on land, they could be downright dangerous if you found yourself in the water with one.

There was nothing, no apparent movement through the water, no further splashes. It wasn’t unreasonable to think a sea lion might just get in the water, dive deep, and disappear, but Tony got the distinct feeling that whatever it was was still there, watching him. Almost as if it was hiding from him rather than just running away.

The thought didn’t make any sense, so Tony just stood still for another minute to be sure that whatever animal was there was most likely gone, then moved to climb down the ladder and slip into the water.

He had his mask and snorkel and some of his lightweight scanning and measuring equipment in a swim pack on his back, ready for when he got out the quarter mile to the edge of the protected zone, where one of his filters was placed. He could have taken a kayak out, or even put on flippers to get out there faster, but he was a good swimmer and it was a great way to get in a daily workout. He liked the natural feel of swimming on his own, even with the slightly awkward drag of his floating equipment bag.

He’d already put the strange splash from earlier out of his mind by the time he reached the small buoy that marked his underwater filtration system. When he tied his bag to the buoy rope, put on his mask, and dove down with a scanner to collect the last few days’ data, however, what he found finally made something click in his head.

Six small, shining saltwater pearls—three white and three black—were arranged in a circle around the base of his machinery. An alternating pattern of black and white, unmistakably deliberate, intelligent, and planned. Someone had collected these specimens from elsewhere in the ocean—possibly hundreds of miles away—and put them here. A message to him… or maybe a gift for him.

Bruce returned that afternoon, and after exchanging a brief hug and some excited chatter about the conference, Tony, fiddling with the edge of his coat with one hand, threw caution to the wind and asked Bruce the question that he’d been thinking of all morning.

“What do you know about the merpeople?”

Bruce frowned at him in that unique way he usually did when Tony proposed something completely out of left field. “Like what, specifically?”

Tony hesitated, only for a moment. “Do you know if there are ever reports of them… leaving things? Like gifts, for humans?”

Bruce looked puzzled. “They’ve been known to clean up ships or decorate manmade structures, but I was under the impression that was always more for them, not for us. I don’t know that much about them, to be honest. Why?” He looked at Tony, and his expression turned to something slightly suspicious. “You think you found something one left behind?”

Tony tried not to be affronted at the hint of mockery in his tone. He knew very well not a single one of the merpeople had been sighted since that disastrous oil spill five years back—the one that prompted a lot of Tony’s work on water filtration systems. Sightings were rare even before that, actual interactions with people even rarer. Logically, it was unlikely, yet it seemed to explain what had been happening lately. “I just—weird things have been happening around my equipment. Stuff showing up that shouldn’t be there, and there doesn’t seem to be any explanation.”

Now the look on Bruce’s face really was mocking, or maybe condescending, and Tony sat back, closing off, already regretting bringing this up at all. “Come on, Tony. No explanation? That’s half of what we do. Don’t anchor on a theory, especially one so unlikely.” Bruce’s voice dropped. “And be careful, you don’t want to go talking about this to the bosses and make everyone think all of your research has just been some mermaid hunt all along. That’s a surefire way to lose funding for the whole lab.”

Bruce was right, of course, so Tony tried to see it that way instead of being offended or hurt at the prompt rejection of his idea. He smiled, though it felt fake even on his own face. “Yeah, you’re right. Dumb theory. I’m sure there’s something else going on.”

But he couldn’t get it out of his head. He kept going with his research, as strong as ever, but he started going out every morning and every evening, looking. Probably looking for ghosts and fantasies, like Bruce said, but he couldn’t stop himself.

He was rewarded another week later, and then a few days after that, and soon it became almost an everyday thing. Splashes in the water and that feeling of being watched. A glimpse of brilliant golden orange, and then a true view of what was clearly a fin. A smooth clash of bright scales and dark skin out of the corner of his eye.

Then, all at once, everything. A month now into this little dance since his talk with Bruce, Tony came out early in the morning, once again just before sunset, to look yet again for what he was starting to lose hope of ever truly seeing.

There was a figure sitting on the rocky outcropping. Barely more than a shadow in the soft pre-dawn light, yet unmistakably looking at Tony. Waiting for him. Could be mistaken for a human from this distance, except for the smooth curve from the waist down over the edge of the rocks.

Breath held, Tony approached slowly, not cautious so much as reverent, disbelieving. All that time spent half doubting himself and his theories, only to be here now. He was acutely aware as he walked that he was now one of maybe a hundred people on the planet to ever come face to face with a mermaid.

Or a merman, he amended as he finally drew close and knelt down to be at eye level. It was probably rude, but he couldn’t help his wandering eyes, the way he gazed at the merman in front of him, looking over all of him, taking in details like he was in a dream—maybe he was—and desperate to remember it all when he woke.

Chocolate-dark skin that both contrasted and blended beautifully with a golden-orange tail. Thousands of smooth scales that almost seemed to glow in the dim light, transitioning slowly to human-soft skin near the waist, yet with a few scales still found here and there across the torso and arms, only serving to further highlight that gorgeous contrast. Two additional sets of small fins on the upper and lower arms, the same brilliant colors as the tail.

Up this close, it was more obvious that the merman wasn’t quite a perfect copy of a human above the waist. His arms and fingers were longer than a human’s. He had no fingernails, but the backs of his hands were scattered with groups of scales. His face, while it probably could have been on any man on the street and not drawn a second glance from strangers passing by, had some tiny differences on close inspection. Eyes that were just a touch bigger and glossier than human eyes. Ears set closer to the head and without the same external structure, designed to hear sounds through water instead of air, not needing to concentrate sound waves or catch them from certain angles. Lips which, up close, betrayed the thicker, smoother skin that, as much as it looked human, wasn’t.

None of it was off-putting, frightening, or any other incarnation of a negative term Tony could think of. The merman was _breathtaking_, the most beautiful living thing Tony had ever seen, a mystery and a fairytale and a cool, clear reality all at once.

Tony sat staring for far longer than he should have, and the merman let him, watching him in return. Minutes passed and Tony opened and then closed his mouth several times, unable to form words that seemed grand enough for the occasion. When his knees began to ache, he shifted back and landed none too gracefully on his ass on the rocks, mind too preoccupied with the sight in front of him to properly control his body. The merman watched the motion, and then _smiled_, the expression clear despite their no doubt utterly different mannerisms and cultures.

Eventually, Tony did find his voice. “Hello,” was all he came up with in the moment, but at least it was a greeting.

A second later, it occurred to him that he might as well have spouted gibberish for all the merman could probably understand him. However, the merman tilted his head at the greeting, the smile never leaving his face, and nodded his head. 

Tony blinked. “Can you… understand me?”

He got another nod and an expression so human that he was pretty sure he wasn’t misreading the amused sort of _duh_ on that gorgeous face. “Um…” Tony said—very eloquent—and he didn’t have to glace down at the merman’s mouth to ask what was on his mind.

The merman looked back at the water behind them and then back to Tony, and Tony understood immediately, feeling like an idiot for not realizing it sooner. Of course, just as his ears were shaped differently to hear underwater, his voice was meant to be used underwater as well. It had already been theorized that the merpeople used a sort of variant of echolocation to communicate and to move seamlessly even far enough below the surface where the sunlight didn’t penetrate. Humans thought they probably spoke to each other with pitches too high for human ears to really discern.

There were other theories, too, ones that were usually snubbed by the scientific community because they didn’t make sense. Ideas that practically amounted to “it’s magic,” but Tony had always been less willing to immediately disregard them than many other scientists. There was so much about the world they didn’t understand yet, and if they refused to look into things that didn’t make sense, they’d never advance their understanding. Or maybe Tony was just a hopeless romantic who found the idea of magical merpeople living beneath the surface of the sea to be appealing.

Tony opened his mouth to say something else, but he was blinded when the sun began to peek above the horizon directly behind the merman. He had to look away and blink rapidly, then shield his eyes with one hand when he looked back.

He half expected the merman to just be gone, but he wasn’t. He’d moved, using those long arms to hoist himself closer to the edge of the rocks they sat on. He smiled back at Tony one more time and then slipped out of view past the edge of the rocks, down the three foot drop and into the water with nothing more than the muted splash that Tony had been hearing for weeks.

By the time Tony leaned over the edge to look down into the water, he was gone.

After sitting there, stunned, on the rocks for close to twenty minutes, Tony finally pulled himself together. He went out and checked on his equipment, as well as performing some maintenance and other tasks for the lab in general. He found himself looking around for glimpses of the merman throughout the process, though there was nothing to see. By the time he went back inside, he was half convinced he’d hallucinated the whole thing.

He greeted Bruce, exchanged some small talk with Natasha and Clint where they were getting their gear together to take one of the boats out. Tony was almost surprised to find that he didn’t hesitate before acting completely normal to all of them. He didn’t mention his encounter, and it wasn’t just out of fear that he’d imagined the whole thing, or that he’d be laughed out of the lab as an air-headed mermaid-chaser.

If it was real, if there was an actual merman out there who for some reason was interested in Tony, well… It had been so long since a confirmed sighting of one. The scientific community would be fascinated, the media would love it. Even if they tried to keep it only within this lab, Bruce—assuming he believed Tony—would want to see him, and so would anyone else who found out, and Tony’s new friend probably wouldn’t appreciate Tony bringing a hoard of eager scientists down on him.

A part of him wondered if it was selfish, if some of his motivation was wanting to keep this incredible, rare experience all to himself. He tried not to acknowledge that. Even if there was a tiny part of him that thought that way, he had legitimate reasons for keeping it a secret.

The merman was waiting for him again the next day. Tony approached with a little more casual grace this time. He was no less overwhelmed by the privilege of being there, but he at least sat down without falling over, and remembered to breathe regularly.

“I feel at a bit of a disadvantage here,” Tony said after his few minutes of awed staring. “I wish you could talk to me.”

The merman cocked his head, then pushed away from the rocks and slid back into the water. Tony swallowed hard, wondering if he’d said something wrong to drive him away. When he leaned over once again to look down at the water, the merman was gone. 

Hoping he wouldn’t blow his chance tomorrow—and that there would _be_ a tomorrow, that he hadn’t somehow driven the merman away for good—Tony collected his things and went down the ladder to perform his usual duties out in the lab’s protected zone.

He nearly had a heart attack when he reached the first piece of equipment, fitted his mask on, grabbed his scanner, and sank down, only to come face to face with the merman. He just barely stopped himself from opening his mouth and inhaling half the damn ocean, but he did blow out all the air in his lungs and begin to sink faster.

Once again smiling, the merman followed him down the fifteen feet to where his monitoring system sat. Tony attached the scanner that would collect data and then looked up to watch the merman, well aware that he would need to go back to the surface soon. Also aware that he probably looked like an idiot in his snorkeling mask.

The merman, on the other hand, looked even more stunning underwater. The sun had come up about fifteen minutes before, and the first bright rays of morning light that penetrated the calm surface of the water reflected brilliantly off his scales. Here, Tony could see that there were patterns of slightly darker and lighter golden orange scales in his tail. It was incredible.

He stared so long, so entranced, that by the time his chest seized and his lungs started screaming at him, he almost couldn’t pull himself together enough to push off the bottom and swim to the surface for air. He coughed out a last tiny bubble of air that he didn’t even think he had left in him, then pushed off and began swimming up. 

He was a strong swimmer, but he seemed clumsy and molasses slow compared to the merman, who rose effortlessly along with him, watching him. Tony spent a minute above the surface getting his breath back, and all the while, he caught flashes of gold around him. He was being circled, patiently waited on.

When he finally took a deep, calm breath and dove back down, the merman was waiting for him, facing him with a look almost as curious as the one Tony knew was on his own face. Then the merman opened his mouth, and a high, ringing note reached Tony through the water.

It was beautiful, in a way, but Tony instantly realized that many of the theories were right. It sounded all the same to Tony. Even if he spent days under the water listening to the merman, he couldn’t distinguish enough detail in the sounds to ever be able to understand what was being said.

It was hard to tell, but Tony thought the merman didn’t seem surprised by this revelation. Obviously, Tony wouldn’t magically be able to understand his language in just this one experience, but something about the merman’s expression seemed to tell Tony that he knew Tony would never be able to understand him.

It made Tony sad, but it also made him determined. After all, he was a scientist. He looked at problems and he figured out how to best approach them, to understand them and find solutions.

Step one of his solution came a few days later. He went out in the early morning, as usual now, to find the merman waiting for him on the rocks. He had his scanning equipment as always, but now he carried an extra piece.

The merman gave him a curious look as he set it up. It wasn’t much, wasn’t hard to rig up—just an old-fashioned keyboard wired to plug into a tablet, with a simple program Tony had created to make each of the keys correspond to a sound. Tony had taped pieces of paper over each of the keys to note the sound they would make—it had occurred to him that while the merman seemed to be able to understand him to some extent, he might not be able to read English, but it was at least useful for Tony himself.

Tony babbled away as he set it up. He was used to talking to himself and his experiments in his labs, and it didn’t take long to get over the awkwardness of chattering away to a merman who couldn’t respond to him out of the water. 

“So, it seems like you can understand me, at least a bit. I know your ears aren’t meant for hearing above the water, so sounds must be strange to you up here—that’s kept me up a few nights, you know, trying to imagine what it must sound like to you, it’s like trying to imagine a new color. And it sucks that I can’t understand your language in the water, and I can’t communicate back to you. We need a solid system, I’ll think of something, but for now, I at least want to be able to call you something other than ‘merman’ in my head.”

Tony figured his theory about sounds above the water was right—the merman, though he responded to simple things Tony said with nods or shakes of the head or smiles, never quite seemed to follow Tony’s faster, more stream-of-consciousness type of chatter. He thought of it something like learning a new language—the clumsy, early stages where you can understand basic sentences if they’re spoken slowly and clearly, but you couldn’t follow a native speaker’s natural conversation. He knew it was much more complicated than that, but the idea worked well enough.

“So,” Tony said as he finished setting up, indicating the tablet and keyboard, “I don’t think I’ve actually even introduced myself, which is pretty rude.” The merman regarded his equipment curiously, then looked up to Tony. Tony smiled. The nerves that accompanied those first few meetings were finally nearly gone. “I’m Tony.”

He put a hand to his own chest when he said the name, then reached down to press two keys on the keyboard. The computerized voice on the tablet spit out the two simple syllables of his name—the long _to_ and then _ni_. 

He pressed the buttons again, then a third time—faster, closer together—and gestured to himself again. The merman smiled his understanding. Now for the moment of truth. Tony gestured to the merman and tilted his head in a clear question.

The merman looked down at the tablet and considered it for a long minute. Just as Tony was starting to worry that he wouldn’t understand the concept or the question being asked, he reached for the keyboard and began pressing the buttons.

He pressed each of them several times, listening. The whole process took a while—the sun rose behind them, and Tony looked back at the building a few times, starting to hope that none of his colleagues would be in early today and decide to come out back.

After going through each and listening to the sounds, the merman began carefully selecting and repeating only certain keys, listening carefully to each one. There was a frown on his face, almost a look of frustration if Tony was reading it right.

Tony knew there were sounds that didn’t exist on this simple keyboard—it was impossible to fit all of them on there—but he’d tried his best. It had also occurred to him that the language of the merpeople might not translate all that well to human sounds. It was possible the merman wouldn’t even be able to approximate his own name. But this was the best Tony could do for the moment.

At last, the merman seemed to find a combination he was minimally satisfied with. He pressed a few keys, tilted his head and listened, then repeated the sequence a few times. From the look on his face, it wasn’t that close to what he wanted, but apparently it was the best he could get.

Tony focused in as he repeated it a few more times. A softer r, coming out in the computerized voice like _ruh_, then a simple _o_, a harder d that sounded like _day_, followed by an extended _e_. It was the last two that the merman seemed most unhappy with, but he still repeated the sequence.

Tony sounded them out and tried to put them together. “Ru-oh-day-ee? Hmm… shorter syllables? Rho-day-ee?”

The merman listened, head cocked, then gave Tony a blank look. “I guess it’s really not reproducible in our language, huh?” Tony said, and got a small smile. “Well, I’ll make it into something—at least I’ll have something to call you.”

Tony went over the syllables in his head several dozen times, combining and merging them in every way he could think of. Eventually, he decided there was simply no way to know what was closest, if it was even possible to be anywhere close, to the merman’s actual language. Instead, he just went with the simplest, shortest version of the name he could make, one that sounded okay in his head. Rhodey. It sounded like a nickname he might give a friend, and wasn’t that an interesting thought. Friends with a merman.

It was another several weeks of the same routine after that. Each time Tony met the merman—Rhodey—it felt just as novel and amazing as the first, but Tony longed to learn more about him. Blathering one-way above water at someone who could only half understand him could only go so far. And underneath the water, though they sometimes met near Tony’s equipment and he heard the ringing sounds of the mersong, he so badly wanted more. To learn more about the merpeople. About their biology, their culture, their lives.

Then, one day, he went out in the morning and there was no one waiting for him. He didn’t think anything of it, at first—there were days that he didn’t see Rhodey at all, but he always came back. Tony supposed Rhodey was busy, too. He probably had something to do besides just watch Tony all day. 

Assuming it would be another of those lonely days, Tony went out into the water as usual to swim out to his buoys, and instead found himself nearly nose-to-nose with Rhodey the moment he climbed down the ladder into the water and turned around.

Rhodey smiled at Tony’s startled look and then there was a hand, smooth and cool, wrapping around Tony’s wrist under the water, and Rhodey’s head sank down as well. Shocked, Tony tried to hold still, treading water with just his feet and his other hand. He had no idea what this was about.

He nearly panicked when he was abruptly pulled underneath the water. He trusted Rhodey, as much as he thought he could trust anyone who really couldn’t speak to him or make any intentions known, but it was still surprising and a little unsettling. Tony was well aware that Rhodey could have easily pulled him under and drowned him any time in the last several months of watching him, but he could still feel his heart racing.

He wasn’t pulled far under at all, just enough to be fully submerged. It took him a moment to open his eyes—the salt water wasn’t the worst, but he still preferred to wear a mask or goggles underwater, and by the time he did, Rhodey’s cool hands were around his neck.

His heart rate spiked again, though he tried to keep the panic off his face. It only took a moment to understand that he wasn’t being strangled or drowned, that the hands around his neck were actually reaching behind him, doing something.

The position put Tony incredibly close to Rhodey’s body, his hands floating somewhere near Rhodey’s waist, his legs still and trying not to accidentally kick that powerful tail. Their faces were close, nearly touching, but before Tony could try to calm his racing heart enough to focus on Rhodey’s expression, Rhodey finished whatever he was doing and pushed Tony back up to the surface.

There was a weight around Tony’s neck. When he looked down, pressing his chin to his chest, he saw a large, translucent green stone surrounded by small pearls. It was some kind of necklace, and what Tony could see of it looked beautiful and rare. Another gift for him.

He took a breath and ducked beneath the water again, not bothering to take his mask out of the floating pack still tied to the ladder behind him. Opening his eyes underwater was easier this time. Rhodey was still floating in the same place, watching him. Tony put a hand up to the necklace and tried to smile his thanks.

Rhodey looked troubled, however, and in the next second, Tony heard something impossible.

_I’m sorry._

The words were as clear as if someone were speaking them right into his ear on land, and they seemed to echo in his head. It was so unexpected, so disorienting, that Tony gasped in a mouthful of water before he even realized it and started choking on it.

Instantly, there were strong hands on him, curling around his ribs, pushing him up. His head broke the surface and he coughed out the water in his mouth, tried to suck in a deep breath, and triggered the inevitable, painful hacking fit that always followed accidentally inhaling water. 

His eyes were shut tight, but the arms holding him moved him through the water and then he could feel his arm bumping against the solid metal ladder that his pack was tied to. He curled one arm around it instinctively, even though he wasn’t supporting his own weight in the water anyway. The arms fell away from him, but a cool hand still stayed on his back, comforting in its weight.

It took a while to finish coughing water out of his raw throat. His nose burned and the back of his mouth tasted vaguely like blood; god, he hated that sensation. It was annoying and embarrassing, too, because really, he should know better. When he finally had his breath back and felt relatively calmed down from the episode, his mind started functioning again, and immediately replayed what had caused it in the first place.

Rhodey’s head was above the water, watching him with obvious concern. Tony coughed lightly one last time. “What the hell was that?”

He was asking himself more than anything, but Rhodey’s concerned expression turned apologetic and the hand not resting on Tony’s back came up to touch his own chest.

Eyes wide, Tony copied the motion, bringing his free hand up to his own chest and touching the necklace he’d been given. Absently, he raised that hand to his head. “Was that… that was you?”

Dark eyes watched him and he got a nod in response. Rhodey reached that hand out like he was going to take the necklace back, sorrow on his face, but Tony jerked his hand back down, covering it. “No! Don’t, please, I’m sorry. That was just… unexpected. Let me try that again.”

Rhodey looked unsure, but Tony took another deep breath and pulled himself down with the ladder, holding on to it still with one hand to steady himself under the water.

Rhodey followed him down a second later, and then that voice echoed in his head again.

_Are you okay?_

Tony blinked under the water, wishing he could take a steadying breath. He moved his free hand to his chest once again, touching the necklace. _How the hell…_

In front of him, Rhodey smiled. 

_You’re a natural._

Tony jerked. _You could hear that? _He thought it in his head, but Rhodey nodded.

Oh, the scientist in Tony was dying to know how this worked. This wasn’t the sound-wave theory that made sense to humans. This… this was basically magic, it was so far outside of humans’ understanding. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend what could make this work, much less how it could somehow be transferred with just a trinket put around his neck. And to add to that, how he was hearing Rhodey’s words in English in his head—was Rhodey hearing his own language? He had so many questions.

Even in his head, Tony couldn’t articulate it. His thoughts were all over the place, until he heard the voice in his head again.

_It’s nice to finally talk to you._

Tony smiled. _Yeah. I was getting sick of just hearing my own voice, and believe me, that’s saying something. I got the feeling you couldn’t really understand me all that well up there, anyway._

Speaking of up there, Tony realized, he’d been under the water for quite a while now. Breathing was still important, no matter how fascinating being able to finally talk to Rhodey was. He moved his arm up one rung of the ladder and pulled himself up to take a few quick, deep breaths above the water, then ducked back down.

Rhodey continued the conversation as if it hadn’t paused, though Tony was already planning to bring a snorkel or get an air hose so he could be underwater for extended periods. He’d need it if they were going to be down here like this, talking, regularly. _You’re right. I know your language, but it’s difficult to hear through the air. You talk very fast._

Tony might have blushed, if he weren’t still so distracted by what was happening.

_Thanks for putting up with me and my constant talking. And my slow machines, then, I know that attempt to learn your name didn’t work all that well. Although_—and here, Tony narrowed his eyes—_if you could do this the entire time…_

_I didn’t mind. And this took time. I had to ask permission to be able to do this, and prove that you were trustworthy, after watching you for a long enough time._ That explained some things. Tony thanked his initial instincts. The fact that he hadn’t told anyone else about Rhodey, even though he was conflicted about it at the time, had now saved him.

Rhodey cocked his head. _I tried my best with your machine, but my language just doesn’t translate that well to yours._

Tony shook his head. _It’s fine. It was something I came up with in a night, and it was far from perfect. I’d already considered the possibility that human sounds couldn’t even replicate yours anyway._

_What did it sound like to you? What do you call me?_

Tony hesitated, only for a second. Not so much worried about embarrassing himself as afraid that it might be insulting. Oh well. _Rhodey._

There was a new sound in his head, flowing and beautiful, like the crystal clear water trickling from melting snow. It took Tony a moment to recognize it as laughter.

This time he might have blushed for real. _That’s what it sounded like to me!_

Rhodey was still laughing in his head, so Tony took the opportunity to pull himself back up for another few long breaths. The voice in his head abruptly disappeared when he surfaced. Tony found himself immediately missing it. Before he could think on that further, he went back down.

The laughter was finally dying out. Tony just tried to give Rhodey a dry look, but he had a feeling that the combination of being underwater and his continued amazement at their communication was ruining the effect.

_I like it_, Rhodey finally said, smiling at him.

_Are you making fun of me?_

_No, I do like it. You couldn’t pronounce my real name anyway. You’re right, the sounds just don’t translate to yours._

Tony hesitated again. _I admit, I really want to know how this works. I can’t even imagine… This is amazing._

_Later._ Even that promise was enough to excite Tony, the idea that there was an explanation at all, and that he might get to learn it. _I’m sure you have other questions._

He did. He had so many questions. _How long have you been watching me? Why leave me things? And why did you decide to show yourself? Why now? And why… why me? _

There was another laugh in his head. _I didn’t mean all at once._

_Sorry._

_Don’t be. I expected it. I’ve been watching this area for the last year. You, specifically, since shortly after you started your water-cleaning experiments._

Tony blinked. _You know about that?_

__

__

_Of course._ The look on Rhodey’s face turned more serious. _We don’t have the machines, the monsters you build, that can poison our home so much faster than you can ever rebuild it. But that doesn’t mean we don’t follow it. We make it a point to track what’s happening to our oceans._

Shame flooded Tony. He should have known this would come up; it had been a point of contention in the past between humans and merpeople, before the humans’ latest disastrous blunder pushed the merpeople away completely. _I’m sorry_, was all he could think to say. 

The harsh lines in Rhodey’s expression softened and a hand reached out to touch Tony’s arm. _You’re trying to fix it. That’s more than most. I don’t blame you._

A tightening in his chest drove Tony back to the surface once more, but as he went, he thought about the past few minutes—however long he’d been here—and the more he thought, the more he realized just how long he’d been going under for.

When he returned, Rhodey was watching him. He must have given away something in his expression, because Rhodey didn’t continue their conversation. _What is it?_

Tony put a hand to the necklace Rhodey had given him, trying to look curious rather than suspicious. _I’ve been down here for… a long time. Without having to breathe as much as it seems like I should._

A smile graced Rhodey’s face once more, but this time, it looked almost mischievous. _The_—and here, he said a word that must not have translated well, because Tony just heard a vague sound, one that didn’t even sound like a real word—_has many gifts._

_Can I… keep it?_

Rhodey nodded. _If you are trustworthy, you’re allowed to keep it with you. Keep it safe, and hidden._

_I’m trustworthy._ Tony hoped he could prove it.

_I know. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t have given it to you at all._

Oh. That made sense, Tony supposed, and Rhodey had indicated earlier that the fact that Tony hadn’t told anyone about Rhodey went some way towards proving that he was trustworthy.

_Thank you_. Tony didn’t know how hard he had to try for his sincerity to show in his thoughts, but he tried nonetheless. _I—_

But he cut himself off when Rhodey jerked, a sudden movement that had Tony tensing. _What is it?_

_Your friends are looking for you_. Shit. Tony looked back up toward the surface, then startled when he felt cool hands around his neck once more.

_Keep it hidden_, Rhodey said once more. _We will speak again after the next sunrise_. Tony barely processed the words over how close they suddenly were, close enough for Tony to see the different shades of brown in Rhodey’s eyes as his hands untied the knot behind Tony’s neck, then pulled away and pressed the necklace into his hands. 

Tony nodded, looking up to the surface one more time. By the time he looked back down, Rhodey was gone.

Tony sat at a table outside his favorite shop, just three blocks from the research station. His tablet and an iced coffee, long since warm, sat on the table in front of him. He sighed down at the tablet and then shook his head, scrolling back a page, when he realized he hadn’t taken in a word for the last several minutes at least.

His mind was elsewhere—specifically, underwater, facing a gorgeous merman that held his attention captive like nothing else ever had before. That seemed to be a theme lately. And while he certainly didn’t think it was unreasonable to be preoccupied with Rhodey, lately he’d started to realize the extent to which he was compromised by this.

He’d been careful not to slack in any of his work—not just to avoid suspicion or detection by his colleagues, but because he genuinely wanted to continue his work. His research into water purification was what drew Rhodey to him in the first place. They’d had plenty of conversations about it over the last two months, with each of them explaining things on their end. Tony had learned a ton about the biology of the merpeople and how pollution in the oceans affected them, plus their own research and efforts toward solving the problem.

His work was never the problem. He had just as much passion for it as before—more, in fact, now that he had a personal connection to it. He didn’t exactly have much of a social life anyway, so it wasn’t like spending an hour underwater talking to a merman five or six days a week was really making a big dent in his free time.

No, the problem was simpler and infinitely more complicated than that.

He _liked_ Rhodey. Once he finally got over his fascination with being chosen to actually speak to a merman, the ways they could communicate, and the differences in their species, he started feeling more and more comfortable with Rhodey. They became friends, he’d like to say, and he looked forward to their conversations. The first week, at least, was entirely focused on science, Tony’s research, and the like, but that wasn’t true anymore. Tony told Rhodey about anything and everything he could think of. His personal life, his lab partners and friends, whatever came to mind. In turn, Tony learned about where Rhodey lived beneath the water, his own family, some of their customs, and some of the places Rhodey had traveled. They just… chatted. 

He got tantalizing hints of a life that was more complicated than Tony would ever understand, and he wanted to know more. There were topics Rhodey didn’t ever expand on; he didn’t seem uncomfortable so much as just unwilling to discuss them. But Tony picked up from hints here and there that Rhodey had more experience with humans than just his and Tony’s interactions, and Tony got the feeling Rhodey was in a more important position within his own society than he outright admitted to Tony.

It all made him fascinating and multi-faceted and very _human_ to Tony, but the real problem came from the little things. Rhodey had a wicked sense of humor that he often concealed in a serious, deadpan delivery. He was curious and inquisitive, a great listener but also an amazing storyteller, and he was sweet and genuinely caring. He had a tough, no-nonsense approach to everything and he didn’t let Tony get away with anything. He was clearly smart as all hell.

He was practically the perfect man, and it took just over a month for Tony’s brain to stop putting the fact that they were of different species and from different worlds in front of the fact that he made Tony laugh and feel things he definitely shouldn’t be feeling for a merman.

He was pretty sure he was in love with Rhodey, and he had absolutely no idea what to do with that.

That was a topic they really hadn’t approached, ever. Tony had only had a few real relationships in the past, none very successful. He had his party years, full of one-night stands that were mostly regrettable, and now he just considered himself lucky not to have picked anything up in that time. The last time he’d dated anyone for more than a few weeks was three years ago, and though it ended amicably, their parting left a sour taste in his mouth. He was always too focused on work these days, anyway, to devote much time to a relationship.

Rhodey had never mentioned anything about a woman—or man, perhaps—in his life. Tony sometimes got the feeling he was being flirted with, but he always dismissed it as him imagining things. How could they even ever be together? It wouldn’t work.

Hell, Tony was starting to think he’d be content spending the rest of his life alone, coming down to the ocean for these brief chats with Rhodey, in love and willing to try to conceal it forever. Or even to get what he could despite the physical differences between them. He felt like some foolish sailor in the old tales, willing to be dragged overboard and drowned just for a single kiss from an elusive mermaid.

But that probably wasn’t fair to Rhodey. Tony had no idea if Rhodey had a partner, or maybe had one waiting for him in the future, but even if he was interested, Tony wouldn’t condemn him to love someone he could never be with.

He snorted out loud at the poetic bullshit in his own head. He’d been coming to this place every other day for the last week, while the weather was nice enough to be outside, trying to get some work done. Instead, he’d spent pretty much every one of those days doing the exact same thing: sitting down, thinking about Rhodey, berating himself for being in love, concluding that it was stupid and he should go down to the water and confess everything to Rhodey and tell him he deserved better, then packing up, heading home, and going out to the ocean the next morning to pine over Rhodey some more while holding casual conversations in his head. Repeat, apparently, forever.

He was just shutting off his tablet and preparing to gather his things when a shadow fell over his table. Whoever it was, they stopped a little too close for comfort. Tony wasn’t exactly in the mood for conversations with overly friendly strangers and he hoped that his refusal to look up from his tablet would broadcast that, but no such luck.

“Hey there, handsome, you looking for company?”

Great, not just an overly friendly stranger, but one hitting on him. He really didn’t need this. Tony let out a sigh, leaning back in his chair. He opened his mouth to say something just rude enough to make them go away without getting himself slapped, but something in the back of his mind stopped him as it replayed the stranger’s words.

It was the voice; familiar, in a vague way, like someone he used to know well years ago but hadn’t talked to in a long time. Frowning, Tony finally looked up.

A man was standing there looking down at him, mouth half tilted up in a familiar expression somewhere between mischievous and smug. Tightly fitted black jeans and a dark green shirt showed off a trim figure, and then the man reached up to tilt his sunglasses out of the way, revealing features that Tony would know anywhere, even changed like this to appear perfectly human.

Tony knew he looked as dumbstruck as the first time he heard that voice in his head—thankfully, this time, there was no water to choke on. Not that it mattered, because his lungs promptly forgot how to move air. It was a wonder there was enough of it left in them to get the one word out. “Rhodey?”

Rhodey stuck a hand out and Tony stared for a moment at the fingers, familiar even like this, shortened to human length and lacking their scales, adorned with perfectly human fingernails. When he finally reached out and took the hand, letting Rhodey pull him up out of his chair, the touch felt familiar despite the differences—the shorter fingers, the rougher skin, the lack of water between them. Rhodey’s skin was slightly warmer like this, but still cool against Tony’s own.

He was pulled up, and when he just continued staring, open-mouthed, Rhodey laughed—it sounded even sweeter out loud than it did in his head—and gathered his things off the table, pressing them into his hands. Tony took them, clumsily, and then practically stumbled after Rhodey when he started walking down the sidewalk, heading down a quiet path into a nearby park.

Rhodey moved with the same easy grace on land that he did in the water, like he was just as accustomed to walking on human legs as swimming with that powerful tail. After watching him for several minutes, walking along beside him and shamelessly staring like those first few days after they’d met, Tony finally recovered his voice.

“How are you… here?” It was all he could articulate at the moment.

There was that smile again, the one that said Rhodey was pleased with having astonished Tony into speechlessness yet again. “My people have walked among yours for hundreds of years. We do it quietly, blending in, so that no one would ever know who we really are—unless we choose to reveal it to them.” He looked over at Tony, and the smile turned softer. “You’ve asked about my job before, and I avoided the topic—this is why. This is what I do, and it took a long time for me to prove that you could be trusted with knowing this.”

“Whoa.” Tony blinked, processing that. “Your job is to… come up here? Pretend to be a human?”

Rhodey raised an eyebrow. “To learn about humans, how they think and act, and to watch their progress above and below the water. You have an enormous impact on our environment—” Tony nodded, they’d talked about that, “—and we need to watch what you do.”

“How many of you do this?”

“From my group? Ten of us. Around the world, there are close to one hundred. We all have slightly different jobs, things we’re meant to be watching, but we report back to the same… organization, you would call it, like a government.”

Tony frowned. “Just one hundred? I mean, I get that it’s supposed to be a secret thing, but you can only spread out so far across the globe with just a hundred people.”

“There aren’t nearly as many of us as you,” Rhodey chuckled. “Your people spread so fast. Like algae.”

Tony eyed him from the side, wondering whether he should be offended. “Is that the merman’s way of saying we breed like rabbits?”

Rhodey frowned and tilted his head, clearly working that one out. Before he could come up with an answer, however, Tony had another thought. “Oh my god, you’re a spy. A super spy. You’re James Bond.”

That only puzzled Rhodey even more—apparently pop culture wasn’t a big focus for merpeople disguised as humans—and Tony laughed. “Famous spy from movies. Sexy, dark and mysterious, always using cool gadgets and bedding hot women. Also fighting bad guys.”

“I’m not sure I see the correlation. But I’m flattered. I think.”

Tony laughed again, and they walked in comfortable silence for another few minutes. Finally, Tony couldn’t keep himself from asking the question that had been nagging at him.

“So, all this time you’ve been talking to me out there, have you also been sneaking around up here? What if I saw you and recognized you?”

Rhodey shook his head. “This is the first time I’ve come up here in a few years. We don’t spend that much time up here—months at a time at the most, and then we go home again in between, correlating research, doing our own work from there.”

Tony hummed at that, trying to think of a comparable human job. “Like military deployment.”

Rhodey tilted his head again. “You would know that better than I would. My people don’t have a military like you do, we don’t wage wars. But there are those of us who work specialized jobs sanctioned by our leadership. We’re considered… fairly elite, I suppose, and there are different divisions. Those that go down to the depths of the trenches, up narrow rivers to freshwater lakes, and then those of us who go on land.”

“Is it dangerous?” Tony asked.

Rhodey looked over at him. “There are always dangers inherent in discovery, didn’t you say that? You compare my job to your military, but I think it’s more like yours. A researcher. Still, we do consider it dangerous. Those who get permission to come up here, we would sooner lay down our lives than reveal any of our secrets to anyone who isn’t approved.”

Tony blinked. “Wow. That’s… intense. I didn’t realize… I mean, I know you said you had to convince someone I was trustworthy enough to make contact with, but I thought it was more informal.”

That earned him another laugh. “Not so much. It took a lot of convincing and the agreement of an entire council for me to be able to approach you like this. I had to prove to them that you hadn’t told anyone about us, and that I believed you wouldn’t in the future. The council is hard to convince, and it becomes even harder when there are… personal feelings involved.”

Tony stopped in the middle of the path and Rhodey turned to look at him expectantly. When Tony failed to form words, Rhodey frowned. “Is something wrong?”

Tony tried, and failed, to sound nonchalant when he blurted, “Are there? Feelings involved, I mean?”

Rhodey’s face went through a series of expressions that Tony couldn’t decipher, then settled on something slightly uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, did I… misinterpret?”

Tony practically choked on his air in his hurry to answer. “No! I mean—you’re not wrong. I just didn’t know if you… returned those feelings. Um.” Now he felt like an even bigger idiot.

The discomfort left Rhodey’s expression. He stepped forward, taking one of Tony’s hands in his. He smiled, and it was soft and affectionate, and Tony was lost, completely. “Then I haven’t been clear enough,” Rhodey said quietly, and pulled Tony into a kiss.

It was short and chaste, but Tony was nearly breathless by the end anyway. Once Rhodey pulled away, Tony knew he was grinning like a complete idiot, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “Oh, good,” he said, and Rhodey laughed again, making the world that much brighter.

Tony woke slowly the next morning. Awake before his alarm, for once. He took a moment to just relax in the warmth of his bed, enjoying the darkness of the early morning and the refreshed feeling of a particularly good sleep.

He opened his eyes lazily, stretching in bed, turned over, and startled when he saw a very much awake Rhodey staring at him.

“You know, in human culture it’s usually considered creepy to watch someone sleep,” Tony said, ruining any attempt at a stern tone with the gigantic yawn that broke the last word.

Rhodey just smiled at him. “You looked peaceful.”

What could he say to that? It seemed so sweet and pure, even though he knew from their months of conversation that Rhodey was anything but. Instead, he just said, “Did you not sleep well?”

“Very well. But my people sleep in small pieces throughout the day. An hour at a time, at most. When we spend time in these forms, we adjust to your habits, but it takes a while.”

Tony chuckled sleepily. “Aww, you take naps. Like cats.”

Rhodey looked like he didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted by that, and Tony decided he should probably wake up properly before he accidentally put his foot in his mouth. “Coffee,” he said, then forced himself to leave the warmth of the bed in search of caffeine.

Rhodey joined him in the kitchen as he started the coffee and sliced a bagel to pop into the toaster. Tony considered offering him a bagel, then changed his mind, remembering their conversation over dinner last night. In this human form, merpeople adjusted to human digestive systems and human nutritional needs, but their minds still preferred the textures and tastes of their own food, and certain things were so foreign to them that most couldn’t stomach it even after months living as humans. 

Tony learned all this, and a lot more, last night when he took Rhodey out to his favorite little diner. Rhodey wasn’t new to acting as a human and was comfortable enough ordering his own food, knowing what he liked from his previous excursions on land. But halfway through the meal, Tony caught him staring with some strange mix between fascination and revulsion as Tony happily consumed his burger, bun and all. Initially thinking it was a problem with the meat and wondering if he’d already screwed this up by making some insensitive misstep, Tony was relieved—if a bit confused—to find out that Rhodey was simply impressed with Tony’s ability to eat breads despite their “disgusting” texture, which made Tony laugh, thinking about how much humanity as a whole loved bread.

He was excited to learn these little things, Tony realized as he cracked a few eggs into a pan. God, he really was a sap—and a nerd—in love with this gorgeous merman and practically salivating at the thought of learning things about another culture, another species, by sharing these moments with Rhodey.

“So, I have to go to work today,” Tony ventured as they ate. “I don’t know if you have anything you need to go and do, but you could come to the lab with me if you’d like. It’s not… it’ll be boring, and you know we couldn’t talk about a lot of things in front of my friends, but it’s not like they’d kick you out of the building.”

Rhodey looked interested. “I would like to see it inside, and to meet your friends, you’ve talked about them a lot. I do have my own work to do—you know we don’t just get sent up here for fun—but it won’t take long, I can do it later. I can work tonight, if you don’t mind me using your computer. The internet is a great thing—it’s too bad we haven’t figured out a way to access it underwater.”

Tony chuckled. “Hm… new project…” and smiled when Rhodey laughed. 

He hesitated, then, more nervous than he had a right to be asking his next question. “So you’re… coming back again tonight?”

Rhodey reached across the table to take Tony’s hand again. “Of course. I’ll stay with you as long as you’ll allow me.”

Tony privately glowed at that, pleased. Rhodey had said that he had feelings for Tony yesterday, but with the differences in their cultures and their communication, Tony wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. They’d kissed and Rhodey had come home with Tony last night and shared his bed, but that could just have been because Tony only had the one bed. It wasn’t that Tony was looking for anything to happen, but he just wasn’t entirely sure what this meant for either of them.

To hear that Rhodey wanted to stay with him, to go to his work and meet his friends, was encouraging. Even if it still had to be under false pretenses; Tony would have to pretend Rhodey was just someone he met at a bar or on the internet or something, and now that he thought of it, he’d have to discuss whether Rhodey was comfortable saying that they were dating.

They’d make it work, however they did it. For Rhodey, Tony was willing to do just about anything.

Strong arms wrapped around Tony’s shoulders from behind as he sat at his desk. He was close to falling asleep over the pages and pages of compiled data from his latest setup. The results were promising, but he had to synthesize all of this into an acceptable academic format to start trying to send it out for grants and funding and all the crap that came along with getting a world-changing idea actually approved.

Rhodey’s fingers pressed into his shoulders in a massage and Tony let out an indecent sound, leaning back and tilting his head until Rhodey obliged and bent down to press a kiss against the corner of his lips.

Over the past few months, they’d quickly gone from the excitement of a new relationship to the comfort of an old one. Tony eventually introduced Rhodey to all of his friends, not just the ones at work, as his partner, and still smiled when he thought about the term.

Tony continued with his work and Rhodey with his. Rhodey sometimes disappeared for a day or two at a time, going back into the water to make reports or do whatever else he needed to do down there. Tony never minded the absences, of course, and he loved to go and meet up with Rhodey at the seaside in his natural form. Each time was as breathtaking as the first.

Tony learned more about Rhodey over time, not just his little quirks and habits but also more about his job and his life. What Tony had been picturing as something of a mandatory station up on land for a limited time was, in fact, more of an elective position. Rhodey was originally meant to come up for a few months, spending most of his time on land, and then go back when he felt he’d accomplished what he wanted to.

But Rhodey was able and willing to request to be moved to a more permanent position above the water, which he did two months into his stay. They announced to Tony’s friends that they’d officially moved in together, and that night they shared their bed for more than sleeping.

Tony worried that he was taking away from Rhodey’s life. That Rhodey was happier in the water and in his private moments regretted getting into a relationship with a human who would never be able to meet him in the middle when it came to bridging the gap between their ways of life.

Despite Tony’s anxieties, Rhodey never seemed anything less than happy with what they had together. When he wanted to, he went back to the water for minutes or hours or days, while Tony was working or sleeping or just taking his own time for himself. Tony never begrudged him the time spent as an actual merman—he only regretted that there was no real way to join him, to share in that part of his life.

Rhodey had been gone the last four days, his longest trip away so far. Good timing, since Tony was incredibly busy with the newest iteration of his design and wouldn’t have any time to spend with him anyway, although he always welcomed Rhodey’s input into his work. But Tony was glad to have him back now, and not just for the heavenly way he pressed into sore, knotted muscles.

“How was it?” Tony asked, his usual question when Rhodey came back up to the surface after more than a day away.

There was an uncharacteristic pause—Rhodey was usually eager to tell Tony what he could about his time with his people—and Tony got up to face him, concerned. 

But Rhodey was smiling widely at him, eyes sparkling. “Very successful,” he said.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Successful” wasn’t usually how he described any of his trips. “What happened?”

Rhodey took his hand and pulled him over to the couch to sit down. Something was swooping in Tony’s stomach—he got the distinct feeling this was about to be an important conversation.

“I hadn’t told you, but for the past month, when I go down, I’ve been asking for something. It’s a very big thing to ask, and it’s almost never done. But I thought… this was worth it. You were worth asking for.”

Tony’s heart swelled at the words. He had no idea what Rhodey was talking about, but the way he said Tony was worthwhile would never fail to warm him. “What were you asking for?”

Rhodey took a deep breath. “A great privilege. You remember me saying how difficult it was to convince them to let us talk the way we did.” Tony nodded. He still had that necklace with him, kept in a locked box in their bedroom. They still used it sometimes, when they met up at the end of one of Rhodey’s trips home.

“This is… similar. But much more than that.” The grip on Tony’s hand tightened. “You’ve been talking about how you wish you could share my experiences, that you want to go and visit my friends and family the way I can come up here to see yours, to live with you. You can.”

Tony heard his own quick intake of breath. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, not when he’d seen so much of what the merpeople were capable of already and knew very well it was just the tip of the iceberg. Still, to hear there was a way for Tony to be able to do what he’d wanted to for so long… “What does that mean, exactly?”

“You can take a form like ours. It’s not permanent, not quite the same as ours. The same way, when I live up here with you, I’m not really a human. But you would be able to come down with me. To see where I live, to meet my people.”

Tony’s breath caught. “That’s… holy shit.”

The hand holding Tony’s squeezed tighter. “It’s only been done three times, at least for those under our government. It isn’t easy for us, to trust a human enough to share what we have with them. It took me all this time to convince them. I… had to let them see our times together, many of them. To show them what I feel for you.”

Tony nodded and met Rhodey’s grateful eyes. Tony had heard enough about the way the merpeople communicated, and experienced some of it himself, to suspect that they were able to share a lot more than just sound waves. Some sort of thought network, allowing them to share emotions and even memories, seemed to take form in the way Rhodey talked about interacting with his family.

Tony was touched that Rhodey mentioned it, by the hesitance with which he approached the subject of having shared those private moments with his government. His way of asking whether that was okay with Tony. From what Tony could gather, that sort of information sharing was commonplace for them, to the point that deliberately hiding something would be looked down on. 

Humans, on the other hand, took privacy of one’s thoughts and emotions to a much higher level than the merpoeple were used to, and it was something they’d had to talk about a lot before. It was part of why Rhodey had assumed that Tony understood his feelings for him when he first came on land. After months of communicating underwater, Rhodey could tell that Tony was falling in love with him, and assumed that his projected emotions in return would be picked up on. It was one of those cultural differences that was sometimes difficult to reconcile. But that just made working out the problems all the sweeter.

Rhodey smiled, briefly, but his expression turned serious again quickly. “I had to get permission to do it before I was even allowed to mention it to you, much less to ask whether you would want to do it.”

“Of course I want to do it,” Tony hurried to say. “God, yes.”

Rhodey shook his head. “It’s not… not like just being able to talk was. This is a physical process. It allows you to change at will, the way I can. It’s not just something you take on and off. It must be done to you. It’s painful. Not every time,” he said, catching Tony’s wide-eyed look, “it doesn’t hurt me to change now. But the first time is… terrible.”

“I don’t care,” Tony said. “To be able to do this, to go down there with you… I’d take any amount of pain. You’re worth it,” he echoed Rhodey’s earlier words back at him.

He saw a flicker of a smile as Rhodey recognized it, but then it disappeared beneath melancholy once more. “That’s not the only problem. I said that it’s only been done three times. That is, only three times successfully. It’s been tried more than that, and it’s failed.”

Tony frowned. “Failed how?”

“They died.”

Tony couldn’t help the shocked horror at that. “It killed them?”

Rhodey closed his eyes, clearly searching for the right words to explain. “It wasn’t the process itself that killed them. It was… it’s difficult to do. You have to be willing to follow whatever we tell you to do, even when it’s painful, or frightening. The people who failed, it was because they broke the flow of the process. To do this…” he looked up once more to meet Tony’s eyes. “I need to take you under the water. Far under. If the process is stopped, there won’t be time for you to get to the surface.”

“I’ll drown.”

Rhodey just nodded. He looked so torn, and Tony hated the look on him. He reached forward to take Rhodey’s other hand, pulling his gaze back to meet Tony’s. “That doesn’t change anything. I can follow instructions. I’ll do whatever you need me to, and I’ll be prepared for it to hurt. I trust you. I love you. I can do it.”

They leaned into a gentle kiss, that turned into a prolonged hug. Turning his head into Tony’s neck, Rhodey said softly, “I love you too.”

Tony rested his chin on Rhodey’s shoulder, feeling his embrace, thinking about how he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. The opportunity to truly be able to share both worlds with Rhodey—there wasn’t a question. For once, his scientific curiosity over the idea was a distant thought. It was all his love for Rhodey that drove his desire. “Let’s do it.”

“It’s your last chance to say no,” Rhodey warned, though the smile on his face said he already knew Tony’s answer.

“Not a chance,” Tony said, hoping his bravado showed more strongly than his nerves. As much as he wanted to do this, as much as he trusted Rhodey, he couldn’t stop the anxiety over the unknown, the anticipation of something difficult and painful, and the knowledge that it could, possibly, kill him.

He was standing on the edge of the water on a private, deserted strip of beach. Thankfully so, because the sun was up and he was naked except for the few pieces of some sort of heavy, silky material wrapped around him. He felt like a mythical selkie—then spent a few distracted moments wondering if any of those tales came from merpeople walking among humans.

Rhodey was moving around him, draping him in more strands of the same material and long strings of pearls and pieces of the same types of things he used to leave as gifts for Tony, so long ago. Finally, after tossing a string over his head and pulling it tight so that the gleaming stone on the end rested flush against the front of Tony’s throat, Rhodey stepped away. “Ready?”

Tony smiled, trying to take a steadying breath. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

He followed Rhodey into the water, feeling heavy and clumsy with everything wrapped around him. By the time he was waist deep and slowly pushing forward, Rhodey had disappeared completely. After a few moments, his head appeared above water again, features elongated back into their natural form, and Tony knew he’d changed back.

Just as the water reached Tony’s chest, two other heads joined Rhodey’s. Another male, lighter skinned and with long dark hair pulled over one shoulder, and a woman who so closely resembled Rhodey that Tony thought it had to be his sister.

They smiled at him, and Tony smiled back, wondering if he’d be able to hear their voices in his head once he ducked under the water, the way he could with Rhodey. The first thing Rhodey had put on him when they’d arrived at the beach was the necklace that let them communicate.

As Tony got out to the point that he would be swimming, two sets of cool hands pressed against his back and arms and guided him through the water. The sensation was slightly disconcerting, but he tried to just relax and let it happen.

They moved a decent distance out from shore, and then a gentle tug on his hand was his warning before he was pulled under. When he got down and opened his eyes, Rhodey was in front of him, reaching out to put his hands on Tony’s shoulders, steadying. 

_We’re going to take you down in just a moment. You’ll need to hold your breath on the way down. As soon as we get down far enough, we’ll begin the process. You won’t have to focus on holding your breath anymore, just focus on me. If you hear my voice, you need to do whatever I tell you._

Tony nodded. They’d been over this, but the repetition helped. He wasn’t sure if Rhodey was repeating it for himself or for Tony. Possibly both. _I’m ready._

Rhodey leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips—different, with his thicker, smoother skin, but no less welcome. Then Tony was pushed to the surface once more.

He looked up at the sky, the sun above the water, and he thought about the first time he saw Rhodey. How beautiful he looked, how breathtaking, and even in that moment, Tony would have done anything for him. Now that was a reality, and it was so much more than awed devotion or scientific amazement. He was in love with everything about Rhodey.

He took a deep, slow breath, and closed his eyes as he was pulled back down and the water closed over his head.

He could feel that he was being pulled down rapidly. Through his closed eyes, he could see the light becoming dimmer. His ears popped once, then again, and the water cooled rapidly as they descended. None of it was too uncomfortable, yet—Tony was a good swimmer, had been diving plenty of times before, and the necklace he was wearing made him less aware of the need for air or the chill of the water against his skin.

The most disconcerting thing was the lack of sound in his head. He knew Rhodey was focused, that even as they descended he’d be preparing whatever ritual it was that would change Tony. But somehow, in all his imagining of this moment over the last week of preparation, it had never occurred to Tony that on his end, it would be completely silent.

The descent went on longer than expected. Tony was aware, in the back of his head, why the people who failed to complete the process drowned. Not that he hadn’t believed Rhodey’s grim warning, but he’d secretly thought that maybe there was a chance, for a good swimmer like him, adding on the ability to hold his breath for longer times, for him to get to the surface if something happened. Now he understood that it was impossible.

It didn’t really frighten him. He trusted Rhodey too much for that. He trusted that Rhodey loved him too much to risk his life on something that might not work. There was a chance, of course, but it had to be a small chance if Rhodey had proposed the idea to Tony at all.

Despite his borrowed enhancements, Tony was starting to feel shivery in the cold water and the increased pressure. There was still a tiny bit of light behind his eyelids, but it was significantly less than up near the surface. The fabrics and pearls he was draped in were starting to feel restricting. He felt the beginnings of an insistent pressure inside his chest—the need to breathe.

Now, he had to consciously resist the urge to squirm in growing discomfort. He hoped that they’d reach the depth they needed soon, because he didn’t want to be focused on the ever increasing need to breathe. He was good at keeping himself calm and resisting the urge, but sooner or later it would become overpowering.

He was so focused on his body’s needs that he didn’t notice the descent slowing until he was suddenly released by the hands holding him. His stomach lurched with the sudden change and he barely stopped himself from jerking around in the water.

_Hold your arms out to the sides_, came Rhodey’s voice in his head. Maybe it was something about the increased pressure under the water, or the fact that most of Tony’s senses were being suppressed, but it seemed to echo louder than ever.

He did as he was told immediately. Surprisingly, the things wrapped around him seemed to help stabilize him, even as he floated blindly in place, eyes closed and arms held out. 

He waited a few seconds, and then there was a light in front of his eyes. It glowed brightly, turned red by Tony’s eyelids, and it strengthened every second. Just as Tony was considering trying to open his eyes to look at it, his whole body seized up.

Rhodey had said it was terrible—that was the worst understatement Tony had ever heard. It was excruciating. It was somehow every type of pain at once—crushing, stabbing, burning. His entire body was on fire and being pulverized all at once. If he could, he’d have curled into a ball and screamed out, but his body seemed to be frozen in place, all of his muscles locked up and out of his control.

The light continued growing along with the pain—as one got brighter, the other got worse. Even behind closed eyes, it was blinding, but Tony was so focused on the pain that he hardly noticed.

Then, a voice in his head. Rhodey, but he sounded so much more distant than just a minute before. _Tony. Open your mouth. Tony!_

It was a command. Tony knew he had to do it, but how? His body was outside his control. If he could leave it, he would. He was dying, being ripped apart, and voluntary control of his muscles seemed to be a thing of the past. Still… it was a command. He should do it.

He didn’t quite know how he managed it, but he obeyed. Slowly, the pain spiking and feeling like it was grinding all his teeth apart, he managed to force his mouth open.

Immediately, something was pressed inside it. He had no idea what it was. He couldn’t taste, couldn’t even feel, through the pain. The only reason he knew he’d been touched at all was that the pain increased and concentrated, momentarily, on his tongue. In the back of his mind, he wished he could rip it out, destroy it. It would surely be better than feeling this.

The voice was growing softer in his head, fading in and out like a bad radio station. It seemed like years before what was left of his mind processed the words being spoken. _Swallow it. You can do it, Tony. Come on. Swallow._

No, he really couldn’t. Just opening his mouth was hard enough. The muscle control required to initiate swallowing seemed impossible. Even as he thought about the process, his throat seemed to constrict. He was blinded by bright light and by pain, every nerve in his body on fire, his chest locked in place and his limbs beyond his control.

He became aware, suddenly, of how very long it had been since he’d breathed. The air in his lungs, what was left of it, was so stale. His chest was being pushed down by the pressure under the water, and now it was being crushed by this immense pain. How much longer could he last? He needed to breathe.

He needed to do something else, too. It was important. That much, he knew. A voice said it to him, and it was a voice he knew, one he trusted. He didn’t know more than that. He couldn’t connect the voice to a face or a name. He couldn’t even remember the voice, not really. Just the vague knowledge that it had been there, at some point. It told him to do something.

To swallow. There was something in his mouth. He had a mouth. Right. That was what he used to breathe, and he needed to do that so badly. But first… he should do what the voice told him.

It took every bit of effort and energy he possessed, and more. Feeling like it was the last thing he would ever do, he closed his mouth and he swallowed.

Something changed. The light that was blinding him, his pain and his destruction and his salvation all at once, was inside him now. It was sliding down his throat, moving into his core. It burned a path through his insides and yet, it pulled all the pain and the paralysis along with it. His body obeyed his brain once more, and he convulsed with the pain even as it drained out of him.

Hands were on him again, touching him. This time, instead of searing pain, the touch was soothing. It seemed to draw the rest of the pain out of his body, and tense muscles released at last, sending him floating, limp with relief. His body felt different, but he was too tired to figure out how.

The voice was back. Rhodey’s voice, in his head, except this time it was different—and it wasn’t alone. In the background, there were others. Whispers, that he felt sure he could hear if only he cared to listen. And Rhodey, his amazing, incredible Rhodey, inside his head. Not just his voice, this time, stronger and clearer than ever before, but more than that. The lingering touch of acrid fear, and worry still prevalent. Soaring joy, and bright elation. All of these feelings not his, and yet there, at the back of his mind.

And all of them wrapped around Rhodey’s sweet voice in his head, in his heart, as lips were pressed to his and then pulled away, his face framed in hands that no longer felt cool against him.

_Tony. Open your eyes, and breathe. _

And Tony did.


End file.
